The Library

He found out three things about Suki in the first week.

One: she had moved from Bristol, which explained the slight difference in her accent that he had noticed without being able to place. Two: she was extremely good at maths, which he discovered when she corrected Mr. Adeyemi's working on the board in a completely calm voice and turned out to be right. Three: she spent every lunch break in the library.

He found out the third thing because Dominic dared him to, which was not a noble reason but was the honest one.

The dare had happened at break on Thursday. Dominic had said: she goes to the library every lunch and you should just go and talk to her. Jamie had said: that would be weird. Dominic had said: weirder than staring at the back of her head in maths? Jamie had not had a good response to this.

The library was warm and quiet at lunch and smelled of old paper and the particular dusty radiator smell that Jamie associated with winter. Suki was at the table by the window, the one with the best light, with a book open in front of her and a packet of crackers that she was eating one at a time with great concentration.

Jamie stood inside the door for a moment. He had not thought past getting here.

He went to the shelf nearest to her table, picked a book without looking at it, and sat down two seats away. Two seats felt like the right distance. Not presumptuous. Not far away enough to seem like he was avoiding her.

Suki did not look up.

He opened his book. It was a guide to freshwater fishing. He had never been fishing in his life. He turned to a page about selecting bait and stared at it with as much interest as he could manufacture.

"That is upside down," Suki said.

He flipped the book. "I know. I was looking at the pictures from a different angle."

"There are no pictures on that page."

He looked. She was correct. It was a full page of text about maggots.

"Interesting text, then," he said.

Suki looked at him for the first time since he had sat down. She had the expression of someone deciding whether a thing was funny or irritating. He could not tell which way it was going to land.

It landed as a very small smile. Not a big one. Just a corners-of-the-mouth one that appeared briefly and then went away.

"You are Jamie," she said. "From the classroom."

"Yes," he said. "You moved my water bottle."

"It was in my seat."

"It was not technically your seat at that point. It was an empty seat."

"It was the seat I was going to sit in," she said. "Which makes it effectively my seat from the moment I identified it."

Jamie thought about this. "That is an interesting position on seat ownership," he said.

"I am an interesting person," she said, and looked back at her book.

He sat there for the rest of lunch. They did not talk again but it was a different kind of not talking than before, comfortable rather than absent, the way you can be quiet with someone once you have established that you both know the other one is there.

When the bell went she put her crackers away and stood up.

"You can sit here tomorrow if you want," she said. "But bring a book you actually intend to read."

"What if I am genuinely interested in freshwater fishing?" Jamie said.

"Then bring it back," she said. "I will believe you if you can name one type of freshwater fish."

"Salmon," he said immediately.

"Salmon is too easy," she said. "Everyone knows salmon." And she walked out.

Jamie stood in the empty library holding the fishing book and feeling, peculiarly, like he had done quite well.

He put the fishing book back on the shelf. Then he took it back out again. Then he put it back.

He left without it. But he remembered where it was.